18 Ways To Get Better At Working Under Pressure

Forbes Coaches Council
Top coaches offer insights on leadership development & careers.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

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Forbes Coaches Council

Top business and career coaches from Forbes Coaches Council offer firsthand insights on leadership development & careers.

Everyone has to deal with pressure, both in their personal and professional lives. In the workplace, this pressure often manifests itself in the form of tight deadlines, demands from your boss, employee performance issues, and other obstacles that get in the way of you doing your job.

Since stress is unavoidable, it's important to learn how to channel and deal with it in a healthy, productive way. In doing so, you'll not only survive tough situations, but thrive in spite of them.

We asked 18 members of ForbesCoachesCouncil to each share one method ofcoachingyourself to work better under pressure.

All images courtesy of Forbes Councils members.

Members of Forbes Coaches Council offer their top tips for working under pressure.

1.Start Predicting And Planning For Crunch Times

You know you - and your business. To work better under pressure, take 10 minutes to identify "crunch times." Crunch times consist of an intense, overwhelming period of work. Consider what you can outsource in advance of your crunch time with a VA, contractor, colleague or team, and then execute it. Expect some A/B testing before this runs well and helps move you forward. - Caroline Stokes, FORWARD Human Capital Solutions

2. Create A Prioritization Strategy

Assess each task on your list. Is the task important to you? Will it relieve pressure or clear space in your day? Does it move you or your company forward? If not, ask whether you can delegate to someone else, or if that task can be postponed or eliminated. Give yourself permission to say no to incoming tasks that don't meet your prioritization criteria so you can say yes to better things. - Erica McCurdy, McCurdy Solutions Group, LLC / DBA McCurdy LifeCoach, LLC

3. Forget The Future, Focus On The Present

One way to be better under pressure is to pull back, slow down and stop thinking about the future deadline or work that needs to be done. Make a quick checklist of the three things you need to do next towards the deadline and do them. Courage is about taking the next hard step; it's about being present and moving forward in the face of fear and uncertainty. - Aaron Levy, Raise The Bar Consulting

4. Break Your Tasks Down

Any project or task can seem overwhelming when looked at as a whole. It's critical to break it down into milestones or steps that can be easily attained. When you look at these individual steps, you can more readily meet goals and feel a sense of accomplishment. Seeing yourself completing the project also builds confidence in giving yourself a system to use. - Laura DeCarlo, Career Directors International

Under a deadline - or in a river, as Sun Tzu ofThe Art of Warwould say - ask yourself, "What needs to be done now?" When the stakes are high, roll up your sleeves and focus on the most important tasks. Bogged in a marsh? Get outside help. Traverse the valleys and mountains, the downs and ups, until you get to the flat plains, where you can equally see behind you and what's in front of you. - Judi Rhee Alloway, Imagine Leadership LLC

6. Stop Procrastinating

Pressure almost always comes because you have failed to prioritize and act. You likely procrastinated and now are paying the price. Procrastination is simply a habit and can be broken. First, ask yourself what you are resisting. Then see if you can give up your resistance and simply act. Interrupting the procrastination habit frequently will lead to a new and more empowering habit of execution. - Janet Zaretsky, The Zenith Business

7. Take Contrary Action With Purposeful Slacking

When under pressure, our first response is to work harder and grind through it. But you can't get out of the problem by doing what got you into the problem. Take contrary action by creating a daily habit of pushing away from your work for 15 minutes or more of "purposeful slacking." Walk, stretch, breathe, meditate, be still ... and allow yourself mental and emotional freedom from all the pressure. - Nancy Marmolejo, TalentAndGenius.com

8. Change How You Think About Pressure

The hardest part of working under pressure is coping with the perception of pressure. More often than not, we worry about some imaginary catastrophe that never happens, and that tends to render us powerless. Focus on one aspect of the task at a time, instead of looking at it in its totality. If you make a list of every step and use a "paint-by-numbers" approach, you'll be fine. - Dave Anderson,The Business Bully Show

9. Try The Eisenhower Model

When facing multiple, competing, high-priority tasks, start by determining which of these tasks need immediate attention and get clarity on the deadlines for each. Then use The Eisenhower Model, which consists of four easy steps to prioritize each: (1) urgent and important; (2) important but not urgent; (3) urgent but not important; (4) neither urgent nor important. Perform the urgent and immediate tasks first. Tasks that are not urgent with no priority fall off the list. It's an amazing way to ease the pressure. - Elva Bankins Baxter, Bankins Consulting, Inc.